


Like Water Follows Water

by thesaturnyear



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2018-03-07 20:56:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3182870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesaturnyear/pseuds/thesaturnyear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felix is convinced she has bigger boobs than Sarah, but Cosima doesn’t think that’s possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Water Follows Water

Felix is convinced she has bigger boobs than Sarah, but Cosima doesn’t think that’s possible. It shouldn’t be possible, anyway. They’re genetically identical. Physically, they should be exactly the same, save for scars and things like that. Marks inflicted by their environment. But Cosima can’t help being curious; maybe something in her environment - her diet, perhaps - causes her breasts to appear larger. Or maybe it’s just her taste in bras. Either way, they’ve been holed up in this loft for days and Cosima is getting really bored.

And it’s not like she’s never looked. At the other clones. Beth had muscular runner’s legs, and Alison is noticeably thinner than the rest of them. She has bigger boobs, apparently. And Sarah seems just a hair shorter. If that’s possible. It’s fascinating, really, how they’re so alike yet also so different. It warrants further study, these little physical anomalies in women who are supposed to be absolutely identical.

“Aren’t you curious?” 

Sarah jumps and clutches her shirt to her bare chest. “Jesus, Cosima. You can’t just sneak up on a person, yeah?”

“Sorry,” Cosima says, taking a step backwards. 

“Curious about what?” Sarah asks, turning around as she finishes pulling her shirt over her head. 

No bra. Cosima makes a mental note. That could explain things, although she’s sure Sarah does wear one, usually. Not that she’s looked, or anything.

“Cosima?” 

“About the skin,” Cosima stammers. Sarah gives her a blank stare in response. “You asked about a patch of dry skin, between your eyebrows, and I do. Get that too, I mean.”

Sarah smiles, a real smile that reaches her eyes, so Cosima continues.

“I have a birthmark, at the base of my skull right under the hairline. Do you?”

“I dunno,” Sarah shrugs, reaching up to rub at the back of her neck.

“Can I?” Cosima reaches out towards Sarah’s neck, and Sarah nods, turning around so her back is to Cosima.

Cosima steps forward, gathers up Sarah’s hair with one hand and lifts it to the side. Then she leans forward and uses her fingers to part the hair at the base of Sarah’s skull. There it is. A strawberry-shaped birthmark that looks identical to her own.

“Can I measure it?”

Sarah turns back around and gives her a puzzled look.

“Your birthmark. Can I measure it?” 

“So I have one, then?”

“Yeah.” 

Sarah sighs and looks down at the floor and Cosima realizes that’s not the answer she was hoping for.

“There are actually a lot of differences between us, even though there shouldn’t be. I’d like to catalog them. It’s fascinating, really.”

“Yeah, like what?”

Sarah looks so small, in this moment, that Cosima just wants to make her smile again.

“Well, Felix is convinced that my boobs are bigger than yours.” Sarah raises an eyebrow at her, and Cosima grins. “I also think I’m slightly taller.”

Sarah looks her up and down and straightens her spine. “Take your shoes off, that’s cheating.”

Cosima laughs at the ridiculousness of it but bends down to comply. She should’ve known Sarah would be competitive. They all are, in their own way. Both barefoot now, they stand side-by-side in front of Felix’s full-length mirror. Really, they need a third party to measure them. A proper scale. But since they have neither of those things, they stand in front of the mirror staring at themselves for a long moment.

“It’s your hair,” Sarah says, breaking the silence. “It stands up off your head. Makes you look taller.”

Cosima giggles. It’s so silly, but Sarah is probably right. 

“Alright, then. Off with the push-up bra too,” Sarah demands and Cosima pulls her gaze from the mirror to look at Sarah’s face. She’s serious. “No way your tits are really bigger than mine. It’s those contraptions you wear.”

Cosima blushes but Sarah doesn’t back down, crossing her arms over her chest and staring at Cosima expectantly. So Cosima reaches around behind herself and unhooks her bra in a maneuver that every girl learns in middle school gym class, sliding the straps off of her shoulders and pulling the garment out from underneath her top. She discards it onto the bed behind them and turns back to face the mirror. 

Sarah is already standing there, frowning at her own reflection. She’s wearing a loose t-shirt and Cosima a fitted tank so whatever real difference there may or may not be is invisible. Then without warning, Sarah pulls her t-shirt up and over her head. She stands straight, sticking her chest out a little towards the mirror, and Cosima smirks. It reminds her of the time at Space Camp when she’d called another girl in her bunk flat-chested and the girl had whipped her top off to prove Cosima wrong. (She wasn’t trying to get the girl topless. Not consciously, anyway.)

“Well?” Sarah eyes Cosima’s top.

“Seriously? What, are we in middle school now?” This is going a little bit too far and Cosima really should shut it down before-

“Yeah, seriously.” Sarah turns away from the mirror to look into Cosima’s eyes, and there’s something there that Cosima can’t ignore. Sarah needs to know. To see.

Cosima turns her back to the mirror and peels off her tank top, dropping it onto the bed with her bra. Then she takes a deep breath and turns around, stepping over so she’s shoulder-to-shoulder with Sarah. 

It’s uncanny, really. Even though they technically have the same face, those faces are made different by their choice of hairstyles and makeup, and Cosima’s glasses. But their bodies, free from such adornments, are eerily identical. Sarah is still frowning at their reflections and Cosima looks harder, trying to figure out why. At first glance they look exactly alike but on closer inspection Cosima’s chest does look a little... fuller, somehow. Sarah’s looks sort of... deflated, for lack of a better word. Then it hits her - how could she be so stupid, not to have realized it sooner? - Sarah’s had a child. Pregnancy, and lactation, can alter a woman’s body in sometimes irreversible ways. She wonders if Sarah nursed Kira. But that’s not something she can really ask, right now.

Cosima stops looking in the mirror then, and turns to Sarah herself, letting her gaze travel over her shoulders and down the smooth curve of her back. She notices a bunch of little scars scattered across Sarah’s right shoulder, all the way down to the shoulder blade, and reaches out absently, playing connect the dots with her finger.

“Fell off my bike on a gravel road, when I was 12,” Sarah says, and Cosima jumps. “Hurt like a bitch. There’s still a bit of gravel stuck in my shoulder, here.” She points to a little spot right where her shoulder meets her arm, and Cosima runs her finger over it, feeling the tiny bumps of rock underneath. Then she steps around in front of Sarah, lifting her chin and pointing to a spot along her jawline.

“I fell out of a tree, when I was 10,” Cosima says. Sarah ducks her head and steps closer to get a better look. As she does their chests brush together, just a barely-there touch of skin on skin. Cosima hears Sarah suck in her breath, but she doesn’t step away. On the contrary, she steps a little closer still, and reaches up to run her finger gently over the scar under Cosima’s chin.

Cosima swallows and looks into Sarah’s eyes. “Do you have any other scars?” she asks, because it feels like the safest thing to say.

"Hmm." Sarah hums her reply and takes a step back, reaching down to unbutton her jeans. Cosima stays silent as Sarah pulls them down so they rest a little lower on her hips. Then she pushes the waistband of her underwear down too, and points to a small horizontal scar right above where her pubic bone must be.

It takes Cosima a second to work out what she's looking at, but then it dawns on her.

"C-section?" she asks, trying to sound as casual as possible. Sarah hasn't spoken about Kira much since she went missing four days ago, and Cosima doesn't want to pry. But Sarah wouldn't be showing her this if she didn't want to talk about it.

"Yeah," Sarah answers. "Kira was breech. That's why I call her 'Monkey'. She was trying to come out hanging upside down."

Cosima doesn't know what to say, so she says the first dumb thing that pops into her head. "Technically, babies do come out upside down. Head first, I mean."

"Yeah, I know." Sarah lets out a shaky breath and fingers the scar on her belly, the forever reminder of the daughter she may have lost for good.

"We'll find her, Sarah," Cosima says. It's an empty promise but it's all they have to hold on to.

Sarah doesn't say anything for a long moment, then she buttons up her pants and squares her shoulders.

"You're damn right, we will. There's no other choice."


End file.
